The Last 260 Books I’ve Read

As part of a never-ending series, I like to do short reviews of the books I read. Here are the latest 10 books I’ve read along with the previous 250 that I’ve perused included.

PS: If you’re wondering why there are very few low rated books on this list, it’s because I have a low tolerance for boredom and tend to just stop reading publications that don’t hold my interest. Sometimes I go back to them and sometimes I don’t.

PS #2: Some of these books were sent to me by publishers, gratis, because they were hoping I’d do reviews. I’m including that because I believe I now have to, legally, although I think that’s silly.

260) Nancy Etcoff: Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty (A: Looks aren’t everything, but they make a much, much bigger difference than you may realize. The studies prove it and Nancy Etcoff, who is an excellent writer, went into great depth on the subject)

256) G. K. Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (C-: Chesterton was a brilliant guy and I had heard good things about the book. However, even though it was cleverly written, it wasn’t very good. I was very disappointed.)

255) Steve Chandler: 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself: Change Your Life Forever (B+: I’d read this book long ago and had forgotten it, so this is a reread. That being said, there actually are a few really useful concepts from the book that I had liked and implemented. All in all, it’s a good book, although it felt like he just tossed a few in there at the end to pad it out to 100)

252) Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers: The Story of Success (B-: As per usual with Gladwell, it was very readable and interesting, but after you’re done, you’re left scratching your head when you try to figure out how to apply anything in the book.)

214) Mark Steyn: After America: Get Ready for Armageddon (A+: I can’t say enough good things about this book. I wish every American could read it to see where this country is headed unless we change course.)

210) Russell Brand: My Booky Wook: A Memoir of Sex, Drugs, and Stand-Up: (B+: This was a surprising, readable, attention-holding book because Brand had a train wreck of a life, where he did almost everything wrong and somehow, someway, ended up being successful in spite of it.)

206) Stephen King: Full Dark, No Stars: (B+: King used to be one of my favorite authors, but the quality of his work had seemed to slip. I was in an airport, in the mood for some horror and gave him another shot. Turns out, this book of semi-short stories was good stuff.)

203) Maribeth Meyers-Anderson: Phoenix: Therapeutic Patterns of Milton H. Erickson: (C: I was fascinated with Erickson’s therapeutic techniques, but my conclusion after reading this book was that Erickson may indeed by brilliant, but a lot of the stories he was telling his students were tall tales designed to enhance his reputation.)

201) Warren Farrell: The Myth of Male Power: (B: This book’s good, but not in the same class as Farrell’s master work “Why Men Are the Way They Are.”)

200) Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene: (B: This book, which is very influential, has a fascinating and well reasoned take on how evolution may work. Unfortunately, Dawkins also manages to shoehorn a number of largely irrelevant atheistic arguments into the book that felt very out of place and poorly reasoned compared to the rest of the tome.)

194) Frank Farrelly: Provocative Therapy: (B: This is a book about a captivating style of therapy that you can also weave into conversation — or at least I can.)

193) Marc J. Seifer: Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius: (B: A detail heavy, intriguing and inspiring book about the life and times of Nikola Tesla. Tesla lived in a fascinating time for American science, but sadly his grandiosity and contract wrangling cost one of the most brilliant men of his time decades of scientific productivity.)

188) Edmund Morgan: Benjamin Franklin (B-: Benjamin Franklin lived an amazing life and while Morgan’s biography taught me a lot about it, it wasn’t a great read and there could have been more details in certain places.)

186) Al Ries and Jack Trout: Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (B+: Another great book on marketing by Ries + Trout. There’s a lot of truth in it, especially in the Internet age, when every niche is crowded with an army of competitors.)

185) Paul Dobransky: The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love (B: Dobransky has a lot of insights, but the book is very complex. At times, it’s hard to get a handle on everything he’s saying and put it into perspective.)

184) Warren Farrell: Why Men Are the Way They Are (A: This is an extraordinary book — and it’s not an anti-female book either. But, it breaks down a lot of behaviors that have been created by the way men and women interact. I would call it allowing you to see the Matrix, except so much of it is out in the open anyway — we just miss it.)

177) Viktor Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning: (A: Frankl explains the details of life in a Nazi Concentration Camp and how it impacts man’s search for the meaning of life. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book to anybody)

176) Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, & Al Switzler (A: Influencer: The Power to Change Anything:: (B: They examine how change works in the real world and apply the lessons from people and organizations that have been successful.)

175) C.S. Lewis: Miracles: (B: A short book by Lewis pondering his agony after his wife passed. It’s a very sad, very moving book and as always with Lewis, you can’t help but learn something.)

168) Robert Glover: No More Mr. Nice Guy!: (B+: For the man who wonders if being too nice a guy is holding him back. There’s some surprisingly good advice in this book — especially if you’re a nice guy.)

165) George Friedman: The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century (B: Analyzing geopolitics and forecasting how things will look for the next 100 years is a daunting, nearly impossible task, but Friedman takes an informed crack at it. Will the book even be mostly right? Probably not, but you learn a lot as Friedman explains the thinking behind his speculation)

164) James Surowiecki: The Wisdom of Crowds (A-: This is a brilliant, well researched book that will give you more faith in the wisdom of crowds and less faith in the proclamations of geniuses who are supposed to be smarter than everyone else.)

163) Thomas Stanley: Stop Acting Rich: …And Start Living Like A Real Millionaire (B-: The idea behind the book, that most of the rich actually got there by saving money and living frugal lifestyles is eye opening and backed up with lots of research. Unfortunately, Stanley really drags the book out by tediously recounting every detail of his research with whole chapters that could have been effectively summarized in a paragraph.)

161) David Olgilvy: Ogilvy on Advertising (B: I learned a lot about advertising by reading this book, but it was more geared towards people in the industry rather than people just looking to beef up their knowledge level about ads)